The property is located at 960 Kifer road, 10 minutes from Cupertino. Apple leased an entire seven building campus in Sunnyvale, less than a mile from here. One of the buildings is the one rumored to be the shell company for Apple’s car. Previously, Apple leased an 80,000 sq. ft. building and a 140,000 sq. ft. building on the same road.

Apple leased the property in November, but it was kept private since then. City permits show that Apple plans to use the old Pepsi bottling factory “as is”. It has been vacant since 2013.

The company is expanding rapidly, acquiring various locations including a former FedEx warehouse, former chip fabrication plant, numerous office buildings, and several R&D labs. Apple has also purchased 86 acres in San Jose, that could house a 4.5 million sq. ft. campus.

Apple’s timeline is still unclear, as sources are conflicted on reports. Some reports are insisting that Apple is already meeting with California officials about testing the vehicle (which assumes there is already a vehicle to view and test). Other reports have been pointing at a hiring freeze and a slowing in progress.

Leave a Reply

I’ve been very outspoken about my skepticism that Apple actually intends to get into the heavy industry business of mass producing cars, and I know that skepticism is shared by at least some well-informed industry watchers, despite what is said in many online articles on the subject. However, after reading the Wikipedia article on the “Apple electric car project”, it does seem a lot more likely that Apple has real plans to enter the market segment. Here’s a quote from that article: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In October 2015, at the Wall Street Journal’s WSJDLive conference at The Montage resort in Laguna Beach, California, Apple CEO Tim Cook stated about the car industry that: “It would seem like there will be massive change in that industry, massive change. You may not agree with that. That’s what I think…“We’ll see what we do in the future. I do think that the industry is at an inflection point for massive change.” Cook enumerated ways that the modern descendants of the Ford Model T would be shaken to the very chassis — the growing importance of software in the car of the future, the rise of autonomous vehicles, and the shift from an internal combustion engine… Read more »

Well, contracting with an existing auto maker would certainly be a much more realistic possibility than contracting with an electronics manufacturer like Foxconn, as others have claimed!

But if Apple is just gonna hire someone else to make cars for them and slap an Apple logo on them, then their profit margin will be even worse than average for the auto industry… and that’s already pretty bad.

If Apple really plans to fundamentally change how cars are made, it won’t be by hiring Magna Steyr to make cars for them.

“Tesla has the experience and could use the addition resources that Apple could easily afford and for Apple they would greatly accelerate their car’s development.”

“…However, I don’t think this is going to happen.”

It does seem like a marriage made in heaven. But like you, I don’t see it happening. Apple has no reason to fund Tesla without being in control, and I can’t see Elon giving up control at present. However, when Elon is ready to get out, which he says won’t happen for at least 4 years, then I can certainly seeing him considering a buyout from Apple.

No way. It would take 5 years just to develop one model and build a manufacturing line to build it, then another 5 years to ramp up to full production (for an inexperienced auto maker). This is for one model. Tesla is the perfect case study of how long it takes to design, test, and manufacture a car from scratch. Nobody is taking over the car market with one model. Not Tesla. Not Apple….and definitely not in 10 years.